I see that you will be coming out with a new raceboard. IMHO, this makes little sense. The raceboard market is small enough already without carving it up more. In Canada we recently held our Master's windsurfing championships. A growing contingent of people (13 in the fleet) were racing the KONA One. Eighteen others were on raceboards with a growing number in an unofficial Starboard Phantom/Severne Raceboard 9.5 fleet. There was significant interest in having more people on the Phantom/Severne set-up. Now you're going to change the board! Certainly in our fleet, no one will follow you. This is NOT Formula! You already have an excellent raceboard. Fleets are NOT big around the world and the economy is tanking everywhere. Why not consolidate your gains? I hear some of you saying "but this is a DEVELOPMENT class". Well, development classes only work when there is enough money to fund that development by continued purchases. Starboard effectively has a monopoly on the market -- RSX is almost dead, Exocets are rarely seen and Mistral, F2 and Fanatic no longer produce raceboards. There is an opportunity to support the Phantom 380 as a class and maybe even as the next Olympic board.

Your points are meaningful, but on the other hand it is interesting and important to see Starboard continue to innovate in the area of longboards. We need such innovation to encourage a renewal of longboard windsurfing. I personnaly rediscovered it with great pleasure thanks to the Phantom 320 and am very interested by the further innovations of 295 and 377.

Exocet also have a new board and this is normal in an open class and very welcome. The concept I make on the 295 and 377 make the Race-Board a lot more Fun than before with a lot more performances. Imagine a board who work better in lighter winds but also who plane almost like a Formula. It was an impossible engineering before this concept, but it came true.
And this can make the Race-Board class really came bigger by interest more people. This class exist since 1988 and their was nothing who really make it more exiting. Their is chance that I will come for the World to show both boards, if you are their you can try and you will see all the picture.
For your information that will be Rsx or and Kite in the JO 2016, so we have time to prepare 2020 and this new concept can be a good base
Have Fun

This is the ongoing dilemma with a manufacturer trying to innovate - do they not change anything to keep previous customers "happy" knowing that they are on the latest kit or do the try to make the best possible board they can? I suggest the later, otherwise we would be still sailing on Windsurfer One-designs (yes - these are still fun)!

By definition a raceboard fleet isn't a one design fleet even if it contains similar boards/rigs, so where Can 102 has indicated that a "de facto" Phantom/Severne one-design fleet has developed and is healthy in his area this should not prohibit the introduction of new kit. I think the only one-design raceboard still being sold is the Mistral One Design, (and soon the Phantom 295).

In our area (Australia) our raceboard fleets consist mainly of old raceboards with a few new ones thrown in, so having manufacturers being active in producing new raceboards is extremely important to ensure the class doesn't die when the old boards finally expire.

It is also interesting to note that in our area the new designs from Starboard & Exocet have not been much, if any, faster than the old designs, but I am looking forward to the time when a new design blows the socks off the old gear - maybe the new Phantom 377 is this board? At the end of the day the best sailor will always win, almost irrespective of the board they are on - in our area anyway.

I will be looking at getting a Phantom 377 asap - the design looks very interesting ( and my existing AHD is in pieces at the moment! )

Remi, you've almost got me convinced, but the prices are almost prohibitive. When can we see more?

ZedZdeD and Bushfire.one, I agree that innovation is important (I bought at the end of the last wave of raceboard innovation -- the F2 Race 380). The fleet here in Canada seems similar to Australia -- old raceboards (F2 Race 380, Mistral Equipes, AHD, etc.). Sails range from 7.5 North Raceboard (yes, that old) to 9.5 Severnes. Very few people went to Formula because of the cost and there are only a few RSX. So, new board designs are interesting. However, with raceboard costs so high, no one is willing to upgrade on a regular basis. There is not much resale of boards, so it is either buy new or stick with the old stuff. Our "one design" fleet will not grow if more of the same board are not available. So, we'll just have different excuses around the bar after racing.

I wish the different windsurfing brands could seat together and define a common one design class, with enough performance to be interesting for seasoned windsurfers, enough accessibility, technical and financial, to concern a broad audience, from the beginner to the most experienced ...

... and think this better than the previous attempts
open -> too difficult, not fun enough in strong wind
long raceboards -> not fun enough in strong winds
tiga -> poor construction, poor performance
RS-X -> too expensive, excessive in all characteristics
Formula -> same as RS-X, plus too fragile
Kona One -> lack of performance, disputable deck design, too long at the cost of fun in upper wind range
T293 -> too short and wide to be interesting enough in light winds
RS-One : maybe interesting, but possibly a bit too short and wide to be interesting in light winds

in my personal opinion the best compromise so far could have been something close to Phantom 320

If each brand tries it on its side, it it difficult to reach a critical mass given the limited size of the market. If they did it together, each one selling the same gear then with own brand and colors, it would be innovative and interesting, a material event and evolution in terms of marketing, and the way to reach the needed critical mass to create a class.